Retro Bunny

He loves hopping back to the past.

Category Archives: Gaming

Are you a human being of a certain age, whose geographical location and status as a television viewer allowed you to watch Movies Games And Videos on ITV? If so: congratulations, you are old like us, and you evidently had a lot of free time on Saturday afternoons like us too. We remember it because the show had an odd habit of featuring Neo Geo games, and you didn’t often see those outside of an arcade.

But also, you might remember Steve Priestley, the forever unseen narrator of that particular television programme. Well, thanks to Funtenga Video Software, he’s back doing the thing we all remember – narrating footage of game previews. But these are no ordinary games! Instead, you will see men fighting their trusty vessels and the wonders of Thanks Blaster. It really does defy reasonable explanation, so we’d advise you just click the play button and leave the problem of working it out to future you.

Mental images can be funny things, but if you’ve always imagined card-playing sessions to involve a collection of knifescarred underworld hoodlums smoking cigars in the backroom of a seedy nightclub, then the bright, neon-lit, up all night world of Card Fighters’ Clash will fulfil your every fantasy.

It has to be one of the most addictive and original games ever to grace any console, with an engrossing mix of RPG and card game that gradually gets its hooks into you and won’t let go.

Basically, your character travels around the Card Fighters world collecting different cards, playing mini-games and battling other players with a pack featuring characters from SNK and Capcom games. If you defeat an opponent, you receive more playing cards to add to your collection.

Initially, the game can be daunting and quite bewildering, with a set of rules to learn and cards that have hit points, soul points and actions. But after a few battles you start to pick up the game and become determined to collect more powerful cards to build up a deck that can take on the hardest of Card Fighters.

The graphics are large, bright and colourful. All of the cards are plastered with comic book representations of videogame stars such as the lovely Jill Valentine from Resident Evil and gangly Dhalsim from Street Fighter 2.

The role playing game bit involves visiting numerous worlds, including Capcom Plaza, Neo Geo Land and Lost World, which features a very silly dinosaur exhibit that roars when you pull a switch. There’s even a spooky Resident Evil mansion in SC Park, full of cute zombies, hidden bonus cards and evil Card Fighter opponents.

The single-player game is superb, but also included is a twoplayer link-up, enabling you to battle against or trade cards with your friends. Card Fighters’ Clash is one of those rare titles that seems to appear from nowhere, but surprises you by delivering a game that’s fresh, fun and incredibly addictive. This is Top Trumps for the new Millennium.

Score

This review was originally published in Computer & Video Games issue 169, December 1995

The Neo Geo has played host to some of the best combat games available. Truth be told it has played host to little else! King of Fighters 95 is another fighting game.

But what a game it is. The most original aspect of KoF has always been the team angle of the game. Rather than taking one fighter into the game you select three, and do battle in each round against three different opponents. This manages to increase the amount of variety in the game by a factor of three, and makes King of Fighters one of the most varied, exciting combat games around. With the exception of Konami’s lacking Dragoon Might, no other fighting game has cottoned on to this excellent idea.

Still, this feature was available in this game’s predecessor, King of Fighters 94. However, this time, there exists a Team Edit mode – this enables you to choose from all 24 fighters and create your own unstoppable killing force. Previous weak links in certain teams can now be removed and replaced, adding significantly to the fun factor. What this also means is that the variety of KoF is now even more pronounced – there are over 2,000 different possible team formations with the 24 fighters.

At its most basic level, King of Fighters is best described as the ultimate culmination in the evolution of Street Fighter II (and this game was designed by some of the original Capcom masters who invented that classic) and represents some of the greatest fighting moments you’ll ever experience in an arcade game.

The home CD version remains identical to the coin-op – as all Neo Geo titles do- but the loading is even more pronounced than the memory-intensive King of Fighters 94. Whereas the preceding game loaded in both teams (six characters), 95 loads in each individual character, which breaks up the game horrendously mid-bout. Oddly enough, you get over it quickly when playing in two-player mode. However, the one player game suffers badly. Speaking of which, the CPU computer logic remains as cheap and as unsatisfying as ever it was – this is definitely a game best enjoyed with two players.

If you’re interested at all in King of Fighters, it’s worth checking out down the arcades. What also might be of interest is the announcement from SNK that they are to have discussions on swapping arcade titles with Sega. Who knows? Maybe we could expect to see a Saturn King of Fighters some time in 1996?

VERDICT

Two popular sprite-based combat games have arrived this month – King of Fighters 95 and X-Men: Children of the Atom (a demo version on Saturn). KoF is definitely an experts’ combat game – the sheer range of attacks, the variety in the characters, the incredible combinations – it’s awesome frankly. I mention X-Men because that game is accessible to novice fighters, which this definitely isn’t. Still, in my books, King of Fighters is aptly named – incredible stuff!

Paul Davies

SECOND OPINION

I’ve never been a big fan of the SNK brand of beat em ups, preferring the likes of Street Fighter 2 and Virtua Fighter instead. As it stands though, King Of Fighters ’95 is undoubtedly a superb fighting game. The huge range of characters. awesome moves, team option and fantastic presentation make KoF a joy to play. If you’ve got a Neo Geo CD you obviously wanted this type of game, and this is the best you can get. I myself, am looking forward to X-Men on the Saturn.

Tom Guise

SCORES

GRAPHICS: 91
Great looking sprites and fantastic backdrops.

ANIMATION: 90
All the awesome moves are displayed in a brilliant fashion.

MUSIC: 91
Atmospheric tunes that add a bit of spice to the action.

SOUND EFFECTS: 91
Great fighting sounds, but some peculiar speech.

GAMEPLAY: 94
For sheer depth and combo potential, KoF is right at the top.

VALUE: 90
24 fighters and an excellent team option. Great value.

OVERALL: 93%
Irritating for solo players, but absolutely stunning in every regard when played as it should be with two players at the controls.

Neo-Geo owners guess what? A new game has arrived and it’s not at all what you’d expect. It’s a sort of platformy shooting arcade adventuring type thing, where two swishly dressed characters face one another and play catch the projectile.

Oh alright, it’s yet another beat ’em up – the third in the Fatal Fury series to be precise – and in spite of the amount of competition on this platform, this latest addition is still a rather good game.

So what’s so ‘special’ about Fatal Fury Special? For a start, there are more characters to choose from. The first Fatal Fury only had three, the sequel had eight, but here you can choose from 15 bone-crunching bruisers. All of them have their own unique fighting style and all come with an assortment of special moves. There are even hidden ‘power blows’ that when executed take off huge amounts of your opponent’s energy. Graphically, there are some new vibrantly coloured backgrounds – the bridge level is even more impressive – and all of them now go through a day to night transition.

With the exception of a few new tunes, the music and sound effects remain much the same: no bad thing this as they were excellent to begin with. Expert players among you will be delighted to hear that there’s a surprise ending in store, but only if you defeat all the opponents without losing a single round.

So there you go, what more could any self respecting Neo-Geo fan ever want in a beat ’em up? Fatal Fury Special looks good, has more characters, sounds great, plays brilliantly and has loads of hidden features.

But why, you ask yourselves, would I want to buy yet another beat ’em up for my machine? Well, given that a) you have an obscene amount of money and b) you wouldn’t have bought a Neo-Geo in the first place if you weren’t a beat ’em up fan, you’d be pretty daft to miss out on this as it’s the best game in this excellent series, and the second best beat ’em up (after Samurai Shodown) available on your system.

This article is from RetroCollect – Retro Gaming Collectors Community. Click the title to hop over there.

Join our intrepid three as we go runnin’ and gunnin’, and diving into the shoot’em up sub genre of run’n’gun games. Messers Phil, Jake and Chris Smith MkII pick up some heavy weaponry, don their bandanas and camo kecks, and jump in the chopper… or do they?